The Spitfire Murders
(2025)(The third book in the Hawthorne Blackout Mystery series)
A novel by Diana Beckett
When a ‘training accident’ kills a Spitfire pilot over Hawthorne Harbor, I am expected to keep my head down, write my reports, and let the Air Ministry tidy it away. Then the second pilot dies. Then the third. And someone paints a crude hooded figure on the hangar wall beside the scorch marks.
They call me Iris Lockwood, warden and busybody. I patrol blackout streets, guide terrified families to shelters and, when the bodies start to fall, I ask the questions no one wants asked. I have seen enough tidy official stories to know when I am being lied to. This time the lies reach all the way from the airfield to the great house on the hill and the old monastery that still holds my worst memories.
Sent in as a temporary clerk, I walk straight into the heart of the fighter station that defends our stretch of coast. Pilots drink tea and joke about not seeing Christmas. Ground crew work until their hands bleed. Somewhere among them, someone is choosing which men fly and which men die. Every ‘accident’ looks too neat. Every answer feels rehearsed. And always there is that same symbol, the monk’s hood, left like a signature.
As the pattern around the Spitfire deaths tightens, I uncover a quiet network that has been judging who counts as a traitor and who deserves to live. The closer I get, the clearer it becomes that my own past is not separate from this. I am walking the same path that began the night my best friend died in a blackout, and if I am right, the person behind these murders has been steering me toward this moment for years.
If I pull on this thread, I could save the men who keep our skies safe. I could also destroy what is left of my town and everyone I care about. If I walk away, more pilots will not come home.
The Spitfire Murders is a tense World War 2 airfield mystery told through the eyes of a determined female sleuth, set on the British home front in the 1940s. Perfect for readers who love WW2 historical mystery, small coastal villages hiding dangerous secrets, and historical detective fiction with a sharp, stubborn heroine.
Book 3 in the Hawthorne Blackout Mysteries, this crime thriller can be read as a stand alone story, but is best enjoyed after The Blackout Murders and The Spectre of Hawthorne Manor.
Genre: Mystery
They call me Iris Lockwood, warden and busybody. I patrol blackout streets, guide terrified families to shelters and, when the bodies start to fall, I ask the questions no one wants asked. I have seen enough tidy official stories to know when I am being lied to. This time the lies reach all the way from the airfield to the great house on the hill and the old monastery that still holds my worst memories.
Sent in as a temporary clerk, I walk straight into the heart of the fighter station that defends our stretch of coast. Pilots drink tea and joke about not seeing Christmas. Ground crew work until their hands bleed. Somewhere among them, someone is choosing which men fly and which men die. Every ‘accident’ looks too neat. Every answer feels rehearsed. And always there is that same symbol, the monk’s hood, left like a signature.
As the pattern around the Spitfire deaths tightens, I uncover a quiet network that has been judging who counts as a traitor and who deserves to live. The closer I get, the clearer it becomes that my own past is not separate from this. I am walking the same path that began the night my best friend died in a blackout, and if I am right, the person behind these murders has been steering me toward this moment for years.
If I pull on this thread, I could save the men who keep our skies safe. I could also destroy what is left of my town and everyone I care about. If I walk away, more pilots will not come home.
The Spitfire Murders is a tense World War 2 airfield mystery told through the eyes of a determined female sleuth, set on the British home front in the 1940s. Perfect for readers who love WW2 historical mystery, small coastal villages hiding dangerous secrets, and historical detective fiction with a sharp, stubborn heroine.
Book 3 in the Hawthorne Blackout Mysteries, this crime thriller can be read as a stand alone story, but is best enjoyed after The Blackout Murders and The Spectre of Hawthorne Manor.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Diana Beckett's The Spitfire Murders